Brussels, 26/08/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 23 August, the European Commission published on line an update of its database on women and men in decision-making, setting out the highlights of the third quarter of 2010.
In the political arena, the main developments in terms of gender balance include: - parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic at the end of May resulted in a record number of women in the Chamber of Deputies (44 out of a total of 200 members, or 22% up from 18%). In addition, at the end of June, Miroslava Nemcova became the first woman Speaker of the House. The positive result for women in the parliament was not, however, reflected in the composition of the government, with the new cabinet led by Prime Minister Petr Neèas being exclusively male when women accounted for almost a quarter of the outgoing cabinet; in Belgium, there was a slight increase in the percentage of women in the Chamber of Representatives (to 40% from 38%) but a small decline in the Senate (38% from 41%); - there were also slight reductions in the percentage of women members following June elections in the Netherlands (down to 41% from 42%) and Slovakia (to 16% from 18%); in the Dutch House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer), Gerdi Verbeet was re-elected president on 22 June; - following the formation of new governments in Finland and Slovakia, there are now three EU countries in which the government is led by women, compared to one (Germany) in the previous quarter; in Finland, Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi's team of twenty ministers includes eleven women (55%), one fewer than in the previous government, and in Slovakia, Iveta Radièova was sworn in as Slovakia's first woman prime minister on 8 July 2010, but has just one female colleague in her fourteen-strong government (14% women, 86% men); - presidential elections took place in Hungary, Germany, and Poland during June-July 2010; men were elected in all three cases and Pál Schmitt, Christian Wulff and Bronis³aw Komorowski have all now taken office as head of state of their respective countries; - just two regional elections were held during the quarter, in Nordrhein-Westfalen (Germany) and Burgenland (Austria); the regional council of Nordrhein-Westfalen is now chaired by a man (hitherto a woman had been in the chair) and the assembly comprises 73% men and 27% women; in Burgenland the election on 30 May resulted in a small decline in the percentage of women in the regional assembly (down to 19% from 22%) and the leader of the assembly is still male.
Selected developments in other areas include: - the governors of all 27 EU central banks remain male and the gender balance amongst the members of key decision-making bodies within central banks also remains unchanged at 82% men and 18% women. The Commission notes some “isolated improvements” in the representation of women during 2010: in the National Bank of Poland, the combined membership of the Monetary Policy Committee and the Management Board now includes four women (24%) compared with just one (6%) in 2009 and the governing board of the Bank of Slovenia now includes one woman among its five members, where there were none previously.
Over the last year there have been few changes in the gender balance at the highest levels of the judiciary: in EU courts, the only change in the relative numbers of men and women judges was the replacement of one man with a woman at the European Court of Justice so that the overall representation of women has just edged above one in five (21%, compared to 19% in 2009). The balance remains better in the European Court of Human Rights, which has jurisdiction over the 47 member states of the Council of Europe, where more than a third (37%) of the judges are women. At national level, changes in the leadership of supreme courts in Sweden and Slovenia mean that most senior judges are female in seven EU member states, compared to five in 2009. The other five are the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Austria, Romania and Finland. Across the EU there has been little change in the gender balance amongst supreme court judges with the share of women edging up to 32% from 31%. (L.C./transl.rt)